He turned his head and caught Infinity looking at him. His gaze locked with Infinity's.
His age was in his eyes. Infinity felt a chill, a prickle of awe.
Nikolai Petrovich smiled.
"Why do you think an old stranger like me would change
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarers.txt her mind, when you could not?"
"You can tell her it isn't a nursing home."
"That is what she fears?"
"That's what she said."
"She thinks Thanthavong and I are geriatric cases."
Embarrassed, Infinity tried to think of something to say. "She doesn't understand . . -"
Cherenkov chuckled.
"Where does she wish to live?" the cosmonaut asked.
"She wasn't quite clear on that. It sounded like she wanted to live in her own house by herself, but she also wanted her family around. I guess she couldn't have either one back on earth."
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"So she came here. Alone."
"Right. She said they'd put her in a nursing home, and she'd die."
"I see. I remain here ... for similar reasons."
"I know," Infinity said.
It was not a nursing home that would kill Nikolai Pelrovich if he went back to earth. The executioners of the Mideast Sweep did not wait for their victims to turn themselves in.
"Why did you come to me, instead of going to the housing committee?"
That was a good question. Infinity realized that the answer was, he wanted an excuse to meet the cosmonaut face-to-face. He was embarrassed to say so.
"There are lots of empty houses, but they either belong to people or they're just shells. Nothing's been finished in a couple months. There's hardly anybody left on the housing committee to do the finishing. Just a few Americans and a Canadian and a Cuban."
"You are still here. You are Cuban, perhaps?"
"No. I use the U.S. passport mostly, but my father was Japanese and Brazilian and my mother was United Tribes, so depending on what rules I pay attention to, I can claim four citizenships."
"And four political entities can claim your allegiance. Complicated."
"It could be, but political entities don't spend much time claiming allegiance from metalworkers turned gardener."
"More fools they," Nikolai Petrovich said.
"Anyway," Infinity said, "I can't ask the committee to put her in somebody's house, because we're all pretending everything is going to be all right and they're coming back and the expedition will go on the way it's planned."
"Pretending?"
"Yeah," Infinity said. "What else? If the Defense Department decides they want us, they'll have us, just like they get everything else they want."
"You are cynical."
"I know how it works!" Infinity said. He fell silent, wishing he had not spoken with such bluntness.
Nikolai Petrovich walked along beside him in silence for a
116 vonda N. Mclntyre
she was from the United States?
while. "Your mother The Southwest?"
Infinity shrugged. It did not mean much to be from one of the Southwest tribes anymore. He wished he had not given Cherenkov the key to his background by bringing up the Department of Defense. They had ripped the Southwe&t land away from the people who inhabited it, and in doing so they had ripped the heart and soul out of most of the people Infinity had been closest to.
"We will not speak of it further,*' Nikolai Petrovich said,
"and we will continue to pretend. So Ms. Brown has the choice of the guesthouse, or the first level of our hill. You wish me to help you persuade her to live in the hill."
"I thought she'd like it. Especially the garden ... I think the best I could get for her, for a while, would be a place with no windows yet, and mud puddles outside."
"The garden you made for her is beautiful," Nikolai Petrovich said. "I notice the changes."
"I saw your footprints sometimes, where you stood to look at things. I wondered what you thought about it," Infinity said, feeling unreasonably pleased. "It'll look better when it's finished. When it has time to settle in and grow for a while. The other thing is, there's a welcome party tonight and if it isn't going to be at her hill I need to tell people where to go. Or whether to go at all. Urn, are you coming?"
The invitation was general, but he had done a special one for Cosmonaut Cherenkov, and left it not only in electronic form on the web but in written form on his doorstep.
"I seldom accept invitations these days,** Nikolai Petrovich said in a neutral tone. Infinity did not know if that meant he was going to make an exception, or if he was put out to have been invited. "A party, you say. Is this sort of thing to become a common occurrence?"
"I don't know. Depends on her, I guess."
"Perhaps I should encourage her to stay in the guesthouse," the cosmonaut said drily. "I value my privacy."
"Oh," Infinity said. "I didn't ... 1 mean—Pm sure it won't get too noisy. I'll tell people to keep it down." He stopped. "I'm sorry."
"Nichivo, " Nikolai Petrovich said. "The truth is I am sel-STARFARERS 117
dom at home and I probably would not notice. I had planned to go away later.''
"Then you will talk to her?**
"I am here with you, after all," the cosmonaut said.
Griffith relumed to the guesthouse. He had ten kilobytes of notes filed away in the web, scrambled and guarded, and plans for a tour of the infrastructure tomorrow. An inspector for the General Accounting Office had complete freedom, and no one on board to answer to.
In the hall, he hesitated. Beyond the central stairway, one of the occupied rooms stood open. Several people laughed, and someone spoke. Griffith frowned, trying to place the familiar voice.
He strode quietly down the hall.
"You see that I would not be such a disaster as a neighbor."
"No one will come to visit," a second voice said, a voice that was quivery, feathery.
"Give it a chance, ma'am." The third voice belonged to someone who had grown up speaking Spanish and English both, and at least one other language that Griffith, to his annoyance, could not pin down. He walked past the open doorway and glanced inside.
"They will visit if you wish. Believe me. I had to train them very hard before they gave up and accepted me as a hermit."
Griffith stopped, staring at the man who sat hunched on the window seat. Griffith was more familiar with him as he had looked when he was younger, but age could not distort the wide, high cheekbones, the square line of the jaw. It only intensified the unusual gray streaks in the man's dark hair.
"My god!" Griffith said. "You are Cherenkov!"
The younger man jumped to his feet, startled; the elderly woman flinched. The old man turned toward Griffith.
"Yes." His voice was as calm as before. "But I prefer my acquaintances to address me as Kolya. Who are you?"
"Griffith, GAO. I heard your voice, I recognized it. Sir, I
just want to express my admiration for your exploits, your bravery—"
"I was very young," Cherenkov said. Suddenly he sounded 118 Vonda N. Mcfntyre
tired. "Only young people are foolish enough for that kind of bravery. Will you join us? This is Mr. Mendez, who is an artist of the earth. This is Ms. Brown, who has just moved here."
"You frightened me," the old lady said with frail dignity.
"I didn't mean to," Griffith said. He looked her up and down. Grandparents in Space was a program he intended to use against the expedition. With Ms. Brown as the program's first member, he thought his attack would be even more effective.
"Will you have some tea?" Ms. Brown said.
The chance to talk to Cherenkov lured him in.
"Sure."
As Griffith entered the room, Mendez sank down on the edge of the bed. Griffith could feel his attention, his suspicion, his fear. He was a strange-looking character, with long thick black hair tied up on the top of his head. He wore a couple of earrings and a grubby, fringed leather vest. Dirt was ground permanently into the knees of his pants. Pretending to be oblivious to the younger man's discomfort, Griffith sat next to him. Cherenkov had the window seat, and Ms.